Dyeing Easter eggs: semi- and totally homemade

by Sarah J. Gim, Posted Apr 10th 2006 @ 5:26PM

easter egg dyes We all know how to dye Easter eggs. I mean, geez, you just have to read the directions on the Paas package, right?!? Hmph.

But some of us aspire to the Sandra Lee brand of semi-homemade, eschewing such blatant ready-made-ness, and will want to dye our eggs without the help of a package. If you're dyeing at home, you can go with food coloring, or go completely crazy and use natural dyes.

Dyeing with food coloring has some benefits because food coloring can make your eggs extremely bright and colorful, like no egg that could come naturally out of a chicken. (Not that anything besides light blue and beige would come out of a chicken anyway.) I mean, haven't you seen the magic of 1 oz. of red food coloring in a red velvet cake?

To dye with food coloring, start with hard boiled eggs. For every 1 c. of hot water, add 1/2 tsp. plain white vinegar, and drops of food coloring to the color intensity your desire. Be miserly with your drops. One drop of red food coloring can go a long way. By the way, in case you're not familiar with the Roy G. Biv, red and yellow make orange, yellow and blue make green (but you should know that from Ziploc!), red and blue make purple. Mix them all together and you get "mud."

Natural dyes are where Easter egg dyeing gets fun and interesting. Think of every food stain you've ever made on your crisp white linen shirt. Though most of us are used to dyeing eggs that have already been hard-boiled, particularly useful when making this a kids' activity, dyeing with natural dyes works better when the dye is allowed to boil with the eggs as they are cooking. It makes the dyes a deeper color, and is faster than waiting for the eggs to pick up the dye in a refrigerator overnight. However, it doesn't have to be done this way, though there are a few natural items that do require boiling regardless.

To dye Easter eggs naturally, place eggs in a single layer in the bottom of a pan. Fill with water to just cover the eggs, and try to estimate about how much water you added. For each 1 c. of water, add 1 tsp. white vinegar. Add the food/dye (listed below), bring the pot to a boil, then reduce to a very very gentle simmer, just as you would to make regular hard-boiled eggs. Cook the eggs and dye this way for 15 minutes. Remove the eggs to dry. If you want the eggs to be a darker, deeper color, replace the eggs in the dye/water and let sit (off the heat) until the eggs reach the desired intensity. Just be forewarned that cooking with the dye means you may cook the eggs for longer than you normally would for a regular boiled egg, which might make them not so delicious for an egg salad sandwich afterwards.

If you're doing it with already hard-boiled eggs, just use the same ratios of water and vinegar, the dye, and let the eggs sit until they color.

Lavender: purple grape juice, violet blossoms
Violet/Blue: violet blossoms, or a few skins of red onions (these have to be boiled)
Blue: blueberries, red cabbage leaves (must be boiled), or purple grape juice
Green: spinach leaves (must be boiled)
Green/ Yellow : boiled with peels of a Yellow Delicious apple
Yellow: boiled with orange or lemon peels, carrot tops, celery seed, ground cumin, or ground turmeric
Orange: boiled with paprika
Brown: very strong coffee, instant coffee, boiled with black walnut shells
Orange/Yellow: boiled with yellow onion skins
Pink: beets, cranberries, cranberry juice, raspberries, red grape juice, juice from pickled beets
Red: boiled with red onion skins

I can only imagine that dipping your eggs into a Cabernet Sauvignon would dye it a deep, delicious wine-y red, but I haven't tried it.

Filed Under: Vegetarian, Vegan, Ingredients, How To, Methods
Tags: boiling, Easter, easter eggs, easter eggs dyes, eggs, fruit, natural dyes, natural easter egg dyes, spices, vegetables

Chew on This

Royal Wedding Cake Details Revealed! - YumSugar

Make Your Own Pop Tarts - CHOW
Denny's Introduces a Maple Bacon Sundae - Eater
Whole Foods Opening Bars in Stores - USA Today
Rules Of Bar Etiquette -- For The Bartender - HuffPost Food

Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

4-10-2006 @7:02PM Geena said... I feel so homesick now! My mother and I used to dye eggs with natural dye ingrediants...

One intresting variation is to press flowers (we used to use clover flowers our of the yard) and put them against the egg shell, then wrap the flowers and eggs with an onion skin (I think we used a rubber band to hold it all together) before boiling to get an intense color with a faint image of flowers on your egg!
Reply

Vote upVote downReport

4-10-2006 @9:33PM ann said... seriously, you think sandra lee would not use paas?
please, she'd use paas, with added food coloring to make the colors extra EXTRA! bright, and then throw in some arsenic just to top it off
Reply

Vote upVote downReport

4-10-2006 @10:20PM cybele said... Just a few years ago my mother and I did eggs like she did when she was a little girl. She saved all her onion skins from her brown and purple onions for several months.

Then we took the larger pieces and soaked them in warm water and wrapped them around raw eggs, tied them up with string and boiled them as usual. Then when we untied them, they looked like terra cotta and marbled eggs. Very pretty, completely natural.
Reply

Vote upVote downReport

4-11-2006 @9:42AM Jessica said... i colored eggs naturally this weekend- i used ground turmeric to get a deep yellow and canned blueberried to get a bluish gray.
i tried using beets to get pink or red, but i just got some really pale yellow- i don't think i used enough beets.

i know, boring assortment of colors... but i was using what i had!

and ann is right- there's no way sandra lee colors eggs naturally. she either uses plastic eggs and pretends they're real, or paas. i can't stand that woman.
Reply

Vote upVote downReport

4-11-2006 @10:56AM Starr said... Martha Stewart would dye her eggs this way. There is no way Sandra Lee would. It would be too much work, much easier to buy the premade dyes in the store or better yet buy the pre-dyed eggs in her local grocery store. I have seen them here in Publix at easter.
Reply